I asked a resident when that field went up. "A couple of years ago," he said, not exactly sure of the date. I asked for whom it was built. "The city, I think." So I called Park and Rec and asked. Nope, I was told. That's Dallas Independent School District land, I was told.

Should have known — it's two blocks from James Madison High School on Martin Luther King Boulevard.

So I emailed DISD spokeswoman Robyn Harris to ask when construction began and why it looks abandoned. DISD just wrapped up its spring-ball season. Surely Madison would have liked using this field rather than schlepping all the way to what my ball-playing son calls the "rock field" in Pleasant Grove, where it plays its home games.

Harris said at first that it's a construction site — "ongoing."

"The phase we entered as the rain picked up was to spray the area with a chemical to treat weeds before sod is installed," she wrote. "I've checked and we are on schedule to be out to begin the treatment tomorrow since we have a break in the rain. Also, once sod is laid you may observe an intentional 'overgrowing' so that it can catch and become thick in time for next season."

Which didn't answer my query about when construction began. So I emailed and remailed and got an answer Tuesday morning. And it's no good answer at all. But it does tell you plenty about how the city and DISD work together to get things done for kids who need it most in areas of town that have the least.

"Construction began in the summer of 2016 with rough grading, drainage and concrete installation," she wrote back. "The fencing was complete in the summer of 2017, however we've experienced various delays due to city permitting on various items, such as the securing of proper irrigation. Irrigation was installed in October 2018."

It is now May 2019, and the school year is almost over.

Also of note: Workers started the original Yankee Stadium in 1922 and had it ready for the 1923 season.

Trash piled high where Birmingham Avenue dead-ends into the DART tracks.

The Dallas City Council will be briefed Wednesday on that VisitDallas audit, which resulted in the recent fare-thee-wells of its CEO and CFO. On the to-do list, too, is a discussion about how the city needs to look over the convention and visitors bureau's shoulders far better than it has in recent years.

If you need a reason to day-trip to Highland Park, wherever that is, there's an estate sale at Margaret McDermott's house. And, no, the proceeds will not go toward fixing the bike-and-hike pieces of her namesake bridge over the Trinity River, so don't even ask.

Per the online heads-up, "Her major art collection went to the Dallas Museum of Art, and family has taken some art and many other things." But judging from the photo spread there's still plenty of intriguing and expensive things to be had at the home of the late philanthropist, art collector and society writer who died in May 2018 at the age of 106.

If you make it before I do and you see some good Dallas histories on the book shelves, lemme know? I promise to pay you back.

Who the heck is Robert Wilonsky?

Well, I am the city columnist at The Dallas Morning News. Son of Herschel and Margaret. Graduate of F.P. Caillet, Alex W. Spence and Thomas Jefferson — Dallas ISD, in other words, which explains a lot, I know. I write about Dallas because, really, I don't like to leave the city limits. And my mom says one day I can grow up to become mayor if I never, ever leave!